ITN chief executive Mark Wood is to step down from the news broadcaster after nearly six years at the helm.

Wood will leave early next year to "pursue opportunities outside the company" although he will remain in his dual role of ITN chairman "for a period", the firm said today.

In a statement, Wood said he was "proud" that "ITN is now flourishing as a diversified multi-media company".

He added: "ITN now has a dynamism, creativity and momentum which will ensure it achieves sustained growth and profitability in the future."

A spokesman for ITN's shareholders, which include ITV plc, Daily Mail and General Trust, Thomson Reuters and United Business Media, said: "ITN's new businesses are achieving double-digit growth this year and Mark has put in place a strong new commercial team which has shown it can sustain this pace.

"We intend to build on those successes and give every support to continuing a strategy aimed at growing profitable areas of business and creating shareholder value.

Wood, an outspoken critic of the BBC's expansion into platforms such as mobile telephony, has been ITN chief executive since June 2003 and chairman since July 1998.

He was previously editor-in-chief of Reuters from 1989 to 2000, in charge of the company's news and television operations worldwide. In 2000 he took charge of Reuters strategic media investments and alliances.

Prior to joining ITN full time, he was managing director of Reuters Content Partners, responsible for Reuters' strategic media investments.

A career journalist, Mark joined Reuters in 1976 and was a correspondent in Vienna, east Berlin, Moscow and Bonn between 1977 and 1987.

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